


years flow (songs dissolved over banks past)

by bansheesquad (deathwailart)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Childbirth, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Dwarves, Fantasy, Gen, Goblin Culture, Goblins, Orc Culture, Orcs, Post-Apocalypse, Quests, Rituals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/bansheesquad
Summary: After the end; Auwgek raises a child and sees them into the world as best she can.After the end; Savni's child leaves to complete a task for their stronghold and meets companions along the way.
Kudos: 3





	1. Auwgek

Under a misbegotten sign, Auwgek gave birth to her child; the stars half-hidden behind a veil of clouds, the sky a familiar acidic green through burnished orange where it touched the horizon, with even the moon's face hidden from her and hers. She'd glimpsed it when she'd set off away from the stronghold earlier in the evening and knew it wasn't a precise shape, that it hung there, shifting from one phase to the next, waxing, Auwgek was certain it was—The growl of Ghorrog bent between her knees called her back to herself. Ghorrog old and scarred, Ghorrog the elder mother with one tusk cracked who demanded that Auwgek focus herself as she flexed her heavy hands upon Auwgek's knees. Solid anchor points. How had her focus shifted as the pain rolled through her again, a great wave as her body strained against what was happening to her that she couldn't stop, helpless to fight against even as she tried to follow the instructions she could barely hear over the roaring in her ears and the thundering of her heart; was this what the old songs meant when they sang of the pounding war drums heralding battle? Surely it had to be, a pain that threatened to split her open as the next wave crashed against her and threatened to sweep her away with it. Once, years ago, Auwgek had been in battle with her sisters and taken a great axe to the hip, a strike that had cleaved all the way down the meat of her thigh, splitting flesh and even muscle from bone. Before that again, when she'd been still been in her girlhood as such things were measured, off on a hunt, a sabre cat had gotten the better of her. A putrid stinking mass of fur and hatred lunging atop her, pinning her, all the breath forced from her body as teeth and claws sank deep into her back, burrowing deep wherever purchase could be found, puncturing through armour even as she fought it off.  
  
To think she thought this would prepare her for tonight. Nothing could have.  
  
Her body seized and she clawed the dirt below her, up on her elbows, taut as a bowstring, heaving for breath.   
  
_This_ was a yawning abyss to be perched before as she bent her head back to howl an oath to the gods and an uncaring sky that gave her no sign, no favour, no fortune; it had given those things to Auwgek years ago, it owed her little else now.   
  
Ghorrog gripped her tighter, the sting of nails in the soft flesh as the back of Auwgek's knees, bending double over Auwgek so that her whole world became the older woman, the white ropes of her braids slipping over her broad shoulders to cut off the rest of the world from her.  
  
"Breathe as I breathe," Ghorrog instructed, the sweat dripping from her forehead onto Auwgek's, chest heaving as a bellows just the same. "Do as I do."  
  
Auwgek obeyed, allowed herself to be lost and slipped under, surrendering herself to an old hand who'd seen all this and more before.  
  
Under those misbegotten signs came the child – misbegotten, there was nothing else for it – shrieking with the fury of a wild thing ripped from the only warmth ever known into cold night air without ever being consulted about it, despite having kicked and punched and flailed to reach this point. Ghorrog set them on Auwgek's chest, Auwgek's hand up to cradle them without thinking even as the face scrunched up with the effort to draw breath and scream anew. They were an ugly creature from this angle to be sure. Auwgek could not have looked this way when she'd rushed out and into the world covered in ichor.  
  
A question on her lips died in her throat with Ghorrog's hands pressing down on her belly, the work not yet finished. Auwgek settled back, drifted away and studied the child; grey as the good clay the builders and artisans worked, tucking them closer as a tiny mouth opened and closed, searching as she nudged them the right way with her hand. Not bad for something signless in the entirety.  
  
"You couldn't have waited." Ghorrog spoke up at least, bloodied all the way up to the elbows. The afterbirth was being placed into a bowl with care to preserve the shape of it for the rest who'd want to poke and prod at it, details that blurred in Auwgek's mind now as the child latched on. There was a caul in her hand next. Auwgek hadn't noticed that but it meant little.  
  
"Me or them?" She asked, her head dropping again, not caring enough to guess as she lay still, body heavier than heavy; dawn was already fast approaching, morning not long behind it and she'd only have so long to put off everyone else, the poking and prodding, their questions.   
  
Even her honour guard of sisters would maintain their distance only for so long as tradition demanded and the walk back home wouldn't allow her to maintain her silence.  
  
A little hand clutched where her tunic had been shoved out of the way in haste, anchoring themselves as much as Ghorrog's hands had about her knees, and Auwgek stroked their tuft of slick black hair, skin beginning to flush now but grey. Still grey. Not like her, or Ghorrog, or the sisters gathered about trading soft talk back and forth. Alone, it might not invite question but without a sign, to be grey where her mother was closer to green…Auwgek dared to sit and found Ghorrog there to support her, an arm of corded muscle beneath her back to help her but she dislodged the child anyway though no protest stronger than mewling came now that the first feed was settled in their belly. Solid now, this little thing, though small for what had seemed such a great increasingly ungainly weight all those long months through the summer when she'd carried them, unable to sleep.  
  
"Drink this, here," Ghorrog sighed, other hand outstretched with a bitter draught that Auwgek choked down without question. Elder mothers lived long, all of them knew better than to question their wisdom. Still she watched Auwgek who watched the child.  
  
"They come when they come," she replied finally since an answer was needed and she wouldn't get away without one even if she'd just given birth, her body aching in places she'd never been so aware of before. Maybe Ghorrog having brought so many babes into the world had expectations no matter if it was your first, your third, or whatever number you reached.  
  
Ghorrog snorted, stroking the child's scalp. "You're not fool enough to believe nonsense like that." When Auwgek said nothing, kept her silence, a disbelieving tut escaped, as if rampant idiocy was being displayed and it aggrieved her to be party to it. "You can hold a child for a sign, we've ways."  
  
"Crossing your legs tight?"  
  
"If you hadn't given birth and weren't holding your newborn right now I'd hit you. No. Not that." Then the other woman softened, her hand kneading at the small of Auwgek's back and she allowed herself to lean into it. "You know better."  
  
"These could be their signs." It was pushing her luck to say that; Ghorrog would only grant her so much even after she'd given birth. They weren't humans who told tales amongst and of themselves that half your brain would disappear with the placenta, even in jest. The child began to root around again, Auwgek's hand cupping their fragile skull. She'd crushed larger things with less thought.  
  
"Signs? What signs do you see? What do I have to give the shamans? Your afterbirth, the caul, a cup of piss, and then bones from your last kill when their hands," Ghorrog's hand reached out, stroked along the child's back because it was her right after bringing them into the world as much as Auwgek had – the subject of discussion suckled hungrily, not a care for their attention – as the woman continued to gesture, "pressed against you demanding _out_?"  
  
"Others make do with less, it's our way to bring them in too. The way of this world left to us." Auwgek yawned, huge, wide, exhausted from her efforts as her eyelids threatened to drag all the way down and take the rest of her with them. Whatever had been in the draught it hadn't been to keep her awake but she didn't need to leap as the doe did when the fawn took those first stumbling steps. She had her sisters guarding her, armed and armoured to tusks and teeth. She couldn't see them but they were out there, spaced out to keep her and the newborn safe from anyone or anything that might come prowling at the howling or the blood in the air.   
  
Her pain was ebbing away at least though that served to make her all the more aware of the blood and sweat clinging to her. She'd get river water clean before they returned in the morning proper. The better part of tradition, something to revive and restore her before everyone descended upon her, scour the wits back into her head.  
  
"You needn't have." Ghorrog sighed. Might as well have been pushing boulders uphill with that sigh and Auwgek couldn't look at her, at what could be lurking in the creases of her eyes and mouth. "Will anyone claim them?"  
  
"No." There wasn't any point in hesitating and the truth came easier now that the truth of the matter lay in the cradle of her arms for all the world to see. Months she'd had to divert attention once she'd started to show. But there was distance between them and not one word even though news travelled along with the caravans of every child to come; celebrations and blessings as well as good sense to make sure everyone could keep track of the size of strongholds these days. "Don't pry, Ghorrog, I know you want to."  
  
"I know your ears," a rust-tinged finger traced one, the child turning, soporific once more. "Those don't come from you – I delivered you, Auwgek, I remember how you were when you came into the world. A little while beneath the sun and the rest might come in time but…think on it when you present them. What comes from you. What's yours in them."  
  
"They're _my_ child." She struggled to raise her free hand in the hopes she might forestall the lecture to come but it was as good as shouting at the tide. "I know we've fought over claims before, but—"  
  
"Lagsha." With a nod of her head to where Ghorrog thought Lagsha might be – she probably had a better idea of it, she'd gone about all of them in turn hadn't she when Auwgek had been settled – the closest of Auwgek's sisters, her favourite, leader of her guard. Not for that reason alone but it counted amongst them. "Her father didn't rouse himself to come but you don't always expect that, I think he knew it was folly to do it or he might've been close enough to passing that it made little difference but his kin did once she'd made her name. Wanted her for their own, to add her glories to theirs, to bolster their numbers."  
  
"It's a human way of doing things, an old way."  
  
"Maybe so but they were our ways too and still are. Blood is blood."  
  
Auwgek sighed. Gods but she wanted this to be over, to sleep and have Ghorrog leave her be with this strange lump of a child she'd birthed without thoughts to dates or moons or stars or anything else she ought to have thought of. But if she had well—well she'd have done that months ago and it was too late. "This is a baby," she said at length. "We've time."  
  
It was either a testament to Ghorrog's fondness for her or her advancing years that she allowed the matter to be dropped, to settle as the stone thrown in the pond, inching closer to share her heat with Auwgek, the strength of her body that carried with it the sweat of two, Auwgek's blood, the herbs of Ghorrog's craft. When hands stroked through her hair she shut her eyes, settling back. Listened to the beat of a heart as her child surely listened to hers.  
  
"We're all happy for you, Auwgek. _Proud_. Don't mistake my words for thinking that we're not. A battle faced and you tried and tested once more, seeing it through with reward and blessing both. But," Ghorrog sighed and it turned to a laugh in Auwgek's ear, soft and warm, "I am an old woman now, old enough to be afraid in the way once who has lived long enough to see you and your mothers and fathers through these trials as well as living them herself."  
  
Eyes closed, Auwgek nodded, head swaying heavily with the movement. "I know, Ghorrog. There's no one else I'd have by my side for those."  
  
As the dawn took hold, the four chosen sisters of Auwgek – Lagsha, Yvethe, Bhaun, Batash – sent up a battle song to the sky, praising the combined great deeds of all five, taunting all foes to ward them off. Auwgek settled in the cradle of Ghorrog's arms, her muscles protesting with the echoes of cramps still nipping and biting, all teeth. Tomorrow was already upon her and with it would come questions, the shamans, the stronghold. For now, she would rest, her child content and crumpled, grunting and squalling, and signless, signless.  
  


* * *

  
  
Sleep didn't stick to her which was much the same as after battle. No matter how sorely wounded Auwgek was ready to move, even sluggishly, to get away, and the child woke on and off, a new and uncertain weight with tiny nails that clawed for purchase against her flesh. At some point Ghorrog had shifted them so that Auwgek's head was in her lap and it was there that she watched the orange fade to pink and purple, a crisp blue at last signalling morning. No putting it off any longer.  
  
Footsteps approached, purposefully loud. No orc warrior or hunter out here would last long if they made so much noise every step and there Lagsha stood, weapon sheathed because as close as she and Auwgek were, not a soul came before anyone with a newborn armed, even if they happened to be sisters.  
  
Auwgek started to rise as Lagsha held out her hands to her, smiling, war paint cracked from a night out in the open. "The rest'll stay back here to guard this spot, I said I'd come by to take you to the river so you can the little one can bathe," Lagsha explained, her voice hoarse from singing long into the night if Auwgek had to guess. When she looked past her sister she could see Yvethe, Bhaun, and Batash all standing a respectful distance away but with their weapons at the ready should they need them. None of them were making much of an effort to disguise their curiosity but had Auwgek ever done that when she'd stood where they had?   
  
With a nod and a few more words, Lagsha and Ghorrog had her on her feet, Lagsha helping her back into her clothes that she'd not bothered to sort before, Ghorrog holding her up then providing a sling to nestle the child in. Lagsha politely kept her hands clear but stared as they mewled in protest, hands flailing. "I thought they'd be bigger."  
  
"Why would you think that?"  
  
"Oh you were huge Auwgek," Lagsha laughed as she spoke, puffing her cheeks out all the better to help with pantomiming the belly Auwgek had spent months adjusting to and now that she stood with so much less weight there, she was off-kilter. Deflated. "All that for such a little thing, barely the size of sabre cat kitten they are."  
  
"Well Lagsha one day you'll be a parent yourself—" Ghorrog began only to be drowned out by Lagsha whistling to the remaining three, signalling that they could move in. "Fine. We can lose nothing here – Batash mind what I've left here, guard it well!"  
  
"Right you are Ghorrog, I'll keep it safe for you!" Batash shouted back and Auwgek winced when the child whimpered, rising in pitch, hoping they might remain quiet until the river as she shushed them.  
  
"Now to the river to clean both of you off, good and presentable for the shamans."  
  
With Lagsha leading them after she hefted Auwgek's axe and held it out to her so that she could use it as a walking stick as she winced the whole way even though she must've weathered worse than this, leaning heavily on it with legs that seemed to have forgotten what they were for or what they were supposed do, pain lancing through her in places she hadn't thought would hurt in such a way, forcing them to halt, the three of them made their slow and steady way to the river. Ghorrog waited with Auwgek, taking some of her weight as Lagsha checked the banks for any creatures that might have been lurking – bears were rare this time of year but better safe than sorry, and the winter had been a lean one for all – and the cool water that beckoned had her tongue thick in her mouth, water she could taste and smell, her skin itching anew at the chance of being rid of her own blood and sweat and more so close at hand, but when Lagsha returned to lend her a hand as Ghorrog strode ahead, sweat beaded anew upon her brow.  
  
"It's all clear sister," Lagsha wrapped an arm about Auwgek's waist without needing to be asked and she braced herself, clutching tight to the hilt of her axe, breath shuddering through her. "Do you need a hand?" Lagsha sounded hopeful more than expectant and Auwgek laughed, or close enough as they reached the bank together, carefully scooping the child out of the sling, holding them out to her waiting sister who held them good and close, large hands engulfing them. It was colder here by the open water out of the protection of the trees even without any wind but still, Lagsha didn't need to hold them quite so close.  
  
Auwgek could tease her later when she'd slept more.   
  
"I don't know how far I can bend," Auwgek muttered when she realised she needed to stop dawdling from watching Lagsha stroke over soft hair and chubby cheeks, down their nose with one scarred knuckle. All of this had made her aware of her body in new, not wholly welcome or unwelcome, just utterly _foreign_ ways, once again as she handed the child off to Ghorrog who'd returned to watch them.  
  
"Tell me what's tender," Lagsha said as she moved to help. They were sisters. They fought alongside one another, had grown up and lived together. They'd seen everything before.  
  
Ghorrog snorted before Auwgek could answer. " _Everything_ and everywhere Lagsha," she groused and at least the three of them could laugh, but her sister's hands were infinitely gentle, the baby gurgling away in Ghorrog's arms as Lagsha got Auwgek out of her tunic and leggings, braced her while she stepped out of her boots and walked her down to the water's edge.  
  
The stronghold had found the river long ago when they'd been nomads on the hunt for a home in those darkest of days, settling by it when there were no others to claim it and more than a hundred years since they'd worked tirelessly to keep it clean of any and all filth that blighted other lands. Other times – nearly every day – Auwgek appreciated fresh clean water to drink and bathe with. A luxury some could still barely fathom. Today the river did not endear itself to her, the icy shock of it a slap to the face as it stole the breath from her lungs when she staggered in, the dried blood and gore streaking away in the snowmelt that had made its way down from the mountains. Steeling herself, she squatted down to submerge herself, pinpricks of pain all over before she stood again and started to scrub, Lagsha having followed her down, boots kicked off with seemingly little care for how soaked she got in the process. Such was the way of sisters and they'd have time to sit and dry off while Ghorrog was busy anyway, Lagsha cupping water in her hands to scrub off the last clinging remnants of Auwgek's war paint that she hadn't sweated off in the birthing.   
  
Finally deeming herself clean enough for the journey back, she took her sister's hand and they sloshed back to the bank to sit in the weak sunlight that did little to warm either of them, Lagsha settling Auwgek back against her the way Ghorrog had the night before, drying her hands on her tunic. Out of a pouch at her belt she drew out the pot of war paint, grinning triumphantly when Auwgek turned to look at her.  
  
"Arms behind you, I'll see you put to rights."  
  
Auwgek nodded and allowed Lagsha to kneel in front of her, eyes soon falling closed with the slow sweeping motions, almost relaxing if not for the poking of Lagsha's left pinkie in her nose where it had been cleaved to the last joint.  
  
Lagsha left her then, striding back to the water to wash attend to her own face, patching up what needed to be repaired before she washed and dried her hands, sitting behind Auwgek as they watched Ghorrog with the baby, testing the depth of the water. From the sound of it – Auwgek didn't want to turn her head – Lagsha was braiding her hair again into the long rope that hung down the middle of her back before she rubbed her palms either side of Auwgek's scalp where the stubble had grown out, short and dark.  
  
"You need a shave sister unless you plan on growing it."  
  
"When have I had time for shaving it? There weren't enough hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the month with a child on the way."  
  
"Any one of us would have done it." Lagsha hooked her chin over Auwgek's shoulder so she might speak close to her ear, all the invitation Auwgek needed to rest the whole of her weight against the other woman. "We thought you had longer though, Auwgek banging our doors—"  
  
Auwgek sighed, sensing this would be the start of it, a refrain she'd need to learn by rote. "They come when they come sister."  
  
Not far from them, Ghorrog had found her spot and had her trousers rolled up past knobbly knees, swapping the nameless child from arm to arm with the ease of one who'd done it enough times to be a master at it, boots already kicked off. A veteran of births and small ones. Auwgek looked on with envy; it would take her time to handle the child with such ease she was sure.  
  
"This one'll scream worse than a stuck pig." There was a surety to the words and neither Auwgek or Lagsha were about to protest them. Lagsha's arms fastened about Auwgek, thighs hemming her in so she wouldn't rise to try and take the child back. This was the way of it only this time she was on the other side.  
  
She couldn't say if she liked it or not yet. Maybe that was part of it too.  
  
Overhead arced a flock of birds, black against the morning sky; they were a rarity in these parts but someone – Auwgek couldn't remember now – had told her they were returning steadily, something about thin shells and chicks and poison building up in them from all they'd eaten. Times were better now. They were careful. The chatter of them suggested starlings but that was soon drowned out by the most anguished of howls the world had surely heard from Auwgek's child as they were lowered into the water by Ghorrog, washed clean, cries that cut through Auwgek straight to the bone. A larger bird, disturbed by the noise or the smaller birds or both, burst from the trees behind them to take off after them. Auwgek keened as Lagsha crooned to her, pinned between her strong thighs as if Auwgek had taken an injury and had to be kept still; low, wretched, animal sounds escaped her, keening from the back of her throat as she scrabbled uselessly at the shingle, all of her coiled tight even as the pain lanced through her again. Lagsha draped herself tighter, hauled her back, tensed, ready to pin Auwgek down should she make a run for it.  
  
"I'm fine," her gasp was wet – when had she started to cry? – and the hand that patted Lagsha's knee heavily was covered in shingle she must have been scrabbling at. "I didn't know—I didn't—"  
  
"Does anyone? You and me Auwgek, how many times have we done this?" Lagsha relaxed her hold and insisted they both lean back; Auwgek was tired in her bones, she had to go with her, settling down against her as she gulped air down to quiet a galloping heart. "You've sat where I've sat before and every time it catches right here." With a hand freed, it let Lagsha thump her chest, loud enough that Auwgek heard it as much as she felt it.  
  
They watched together as Ghorrog waded out of the water with the child, drying them off with cloth from her small pack before swaddling them good and tight. Lagsha hooked her chin back over Auwgek's shoulder, a tusk catching her ear when she spoke. "D'you have a name picked out yet or did you not get round to that either?"  
  
"There aren't any signs so that makes it harder."  
  
"Well they won't have that name forever will they? Not so many years before you'll come telling us all about them marching up to you to look you in the eyes saying 'no mother, this is my name now, this is me' with their chin drawn up in a challenge so you dare to disagree from them." Lagsha paused long enough that Auwgek knew she was smiling, lost in her memories. "Least that's how I remember it going."  
  
"I can't even remember what my parents called me first." And it wasn't as if Auwgek's parents were still here for her to go asking them, even if they still did, her mother dying off on the hunt, her father from a consequence of his work such as it was.   
  
"Still," Lagsha hoisted Auwgek up as she spoke, helping her with her clothes and boots then stooping for their weapons, "better only a few years if it's an indignity instead of a lifetime. I can't count the number of humans I've met who hate their names but stick by them because their parents gave them that name and it's their name even if another name fits them better."  
  
Auwgek snorted at that, hands on Lagsha's shoulders still from where she'd come about to face her in the process of dressing, Ghorrog set on taking her damned time returning the child but there were things she had to do, presumably, without the mother being in the way. Humans and their traditions were a mystery on a good day, a trial and an embarrassment on others depending on if you were on the receiving end or just witnessing them; all of the sisters liked to gossip often on them since the stronghold had begun to strengthen ties for the sake of trade. "I thought about it you know? When I was carrying them," she jerked a head down the way even though she didn't need to, "how they do it, and they had plenty to say the times I was about them when I was pregnant, all the notions about women having children – I know, I know, that's another thing entirely – and the way that out comes the child, you slap a name on them. Did you know how many of them say they can look at them and _know_?"  
  
Lagsha's lips curled away from her teeth, a mix of disgust and amusement that was familiar whenever the discussed humans together as she shook her head, braids swaying, beads clinking as they headed slowly towards Ghorrog. "That's the human way. They think they look at you and know everything. Look what's between the legs, slap them on the arse to make sure they're crying, hang a name on them for life. Only a woman ever gives birth to a child, that sort of thing. Madness. I don't think it was always that way. Batash…Batash says they went back a ways after."  
  
"I know. But you know what they say about us."  
  
"Oh I know."  
  
"Both of you know our gods." Ghorrog interrupted them; the child held out, the sling sorted and their weight and warmth against Auwgek's chest once again as she stroked a chubby cheek that nestled close to her. "There are gifts given to us not extended to them – we remember that and we used it well. We are mindful, always."  
  
"Maybe they'd do well to remember a few things too," Lagsha muttered as she took the lead on the trail they'd taken to the water, listening for their sisters. "Still, that'd mean scraping themselves back out their own ignorance and realising they've been wrong a long time when they've been insisting they've the right of it. They never did get over the elves."  
  
"Lagsha," Auwgek smiled despite all that was still to come once they returned, "have I mentioned lately that you're my favourite sister?"  
  


* * *

  
  
The shamans did as shamans did; bounced the child between their hands and proclaimed them a blessing the way every child had been a blessing since the sky had ceased to be predictably blue, since the rain had turned to acid and all anyone had ever known had tilted strangely off its axis. A healthy child to a healthy mother with a name that was of little consequence to anyone and no one recorded; Lagsha stepped forward as second parent when that question came and no one questioned it even if they all knew it wasn't the truth.  
  
Signless. No fixed moon. A caul that could mean many things. A two-headed deer for the last thing.   
  
But Auwgek's child, child of the stronghold. They weren't other places, other people. Noted for when the child chose their name and more important things about themselves but for now of Auwgek – and Lagsha – and of the stronghold to learn, to remember, to grow.  
  


* * *

  
  
"Tell me about what happened when I was younger."  
  
Savni was sat at the kitchen table with their hair shaved freshly on the left side, undercuts having become fashionable again of late the way they'd been when Auwgek had been too young to wear one herself.   
  
How nineteen years had passed since that signless night with that unfixed moon Auwgek didn't know. That it had been twelve since that child had announced themselves as Savni staggered her enough but that was life and true enough, when she'd told her sisters they'd laughed together, even those with their own children by then, and now here they both sat, Savni not so many years younger than Auwgek had been when she'd been off to make her way in the world. But it wasn't a hunt Savni readied themselves for, oh no, nothing so simple for Savni.  
  
For a misbegotten child with no sign, they hadn't done too badly with plans. All the more reason this didn't surprise Auwgek as she set aside her work and joined her child, smiling fondly.  
  
"I named you," Auwgek began the way she had so many times before because like so many children Savni enjoyed the story of how they came to be, Auwgek had as well, even when she'd been grown. "When the signs were veiled and the moon was unfixed. When you were born in your caul, still pale from scalp to cheek," she reached out to stroke that same cheek that had darkened now from hours spent outdoors beneath an unforgiving sun so high in the mountains, Savni smiling without thinking. "Lagsha stepped forward as your second parent, claiming right should they be needed."  
  
"You never told me that before. Lagsha didn't either…" Savni frowned, bottom lip puckering between her tusks.  
  
Auwgek sighed, a hand stretched across the table for Savni's, relieved to find it there waiting for her. "Lagsha understood. Things…things happened with her claim. It is what it is; signless and only one claim to you wasn't something we wanted to risk."  
  
Savni had never asked about their other parent and Auwgek – or Lagsha for that matter – hadn't thought much of it as the years passed, not much beyond if it was a thing owed but no one else had come to claim Savni, Savni had never asked, and other matters took more importance and so the years passed until here and now where they sat at the table together.   
  
"I always loved aunt Lagsha most," Savni said after a moment of considering it at least at first. "She always let me get away with things no one else did when she was looking after me."  
  
"Why doesn't that surprise me; Lagsha's my favourite sister even if she drives me mad even now sometimes. Whenever I needed it, she was first to help take care of you, not a word of complaint on her end or explanation on mine needed. There she was, happy to step in."  
  
Not that Bhaun, Batash or Yvethe hadn't but Lagsha first and foremost, able to soothe Auwgek's fears over her child born the way they'd been, all the sisters shoulder to shoulder with Ghorrog at her back too, arms folded, resolute.  
  
Savni nodded, seemingly ready to move on for the moment. "What was the last kill then, before you had me?" It was always Savni's favourite part. Not surprising given who Savni was and now Auwgek knew _that_ had been the sign, not anything else, and perhaps the shamans had seen what Auwgek hadn't at that time too, new to it as she'd been.   
  
"A two-headed stag. Most of those stags have three antlers but this one had four, two of them had twisted and twined together into a centre point and the heads had to move together. A fine beast to have grown to such an age and size that way. I threw my axe clean through his chest. Your hand reached out when I made the throw. The shamans – you won't remember those shamans, they were old when you were born and died when you were little – spread your caul over those bones that I presented you before. The caul over those ribs, the afterbirth beneath where all the vital things would have been." Auwgek had never pretended to understand all their ways, Savni probably didn't know much more either but there was a way to knowing the stories and this came easily with repetition. "The last precious memories of who and what we are carried into the world and ushered forth when we remember. A world we feared would be lost, that there would never be another until there was."  
  
"When we emerged, taller, stronger, tight-knit." Savni intoned the words with the expected solemnity even here in their own home; Auwgek wondered if Savni thought they had to now that they were setting off with weapons made for their hand and purpose laden upon their shoulders. Had Auwgek been that way herself? Serious enough for her parents to hide smiles behind their hands as she did now?  
  
"Just so." Auwgek smiled, squeezing Savni's hand. "Uraz – you remember Uraz? – he would watch your lessons when you were knee high, before you outgrew all your clothes faster than I could keep up with. He knew I was worried about how you were born, no signs, the moon as it was, someone who could come the way Lagsha's kin did and cause trouble for you and us but you most of all. That you might grow up with nothing because those are the fears that we all carry in us now when the world is scarred from what the elves did and the humans do little to help even when they suffer just the same. But he would always look at you and say: there is a child that will do well for themselves. And here you are."  
  
But they'd be leaving soon only Auwgek could say nothing because it wasn't her place to. Most of them left at one time or another and who was she to stand in the way of that? Nothing and no one. Savni dipped her head, smiling, a flush that lit her cheeks – still greyer than the rest of them but no one remarked on these things now, twenty years was a long time though it gave Savni the look of one who'd gone off to seek wisdom in ways Auwgek and her sisters hadn't. It meant Savni missed the shadow that passed over Auwgek's face, if only for a moment. Better that way. Better not to see their mother's doubts now, their fears.  
  
"I'm afraid to go. I thought—I thought hearing all this before I left would make me remember and feel brave. I know I have nights left and that I've been away before but not…not like this. Not alone." Savni chewed their lip, a habit they'd never managed to give up despite many attempts over the years, their lip raw and bloodied upon closer inspection. Evidently they'd been worrying at it for a good while before Auwgek had been interrupted.   
  
"It's not foolish to have those fears if that's what you're worried about. But it's harder for us. To go out alone that first time away from the stronghold. The dwarves will always accept what you tell them."  
  
"I've been memorising the braids." Savni said and Auwgek nodded her approval.  
  
"Good, that's good. If one wants to come on the way with you? Say yes. A dwarf is always a good companion on the journey. Elves—I don't think anyone still living has ever met one so you don't need to bother with that. The goblins are more like us."  
  
"If we came out of bogs," Savni muttered flatly, a little smirk playing about their mouth.  
  
Auwgek smacked their hand, pretending to be scandalised. "They don't always come out of bogs Savni!"  
  
Savni snorted, rolling their eyes. "They pop up out of odd places like bogs, they're not birthed the way we are."  
  
"Humans are birth," Auwgek pointed out, sharper than she intended as she continued on, cutting off what could be something else entirely about goblins is Savni was going to churlish about the matter. "Humans are going to say terrible things to you because it's what they do with almost all of us. I think they grudgingly respect the dwarves and that's because they've little choice in the matter but they're ignorant. When push came to shove plenty of us went the way we did, other strongholds, the goblins, the dwarves, but most of the large human settlements went back. Went back to what they remembered of _their_ good days long before the elves had their ideas that landed us where we are.   
  
"I've had more luck of it, Savni, when it comes to them: I might be an orc and they've never had much love of us even before the end from what I can gather, especially not since we brought together our old ways and the world we were left with but I am a thing they can understand. Or they can come close enough. They look at me and see a woman. They wouldn't care what I call myself, they'd look and take a moment to decide my shape for themselves and choose."  
  
Years now, since Savni's childhood, the beginning of the end coming with Savni telling Auwgek their name, their shape to Auwgek who had guided as best she could until that day but even now she'd stood between Savni and the world or had another in her stead. Shielding her child from the worst. She couldn't forever but now the day was approaching faster and faster she couldn't stop herself from wanting to claw at the hands of time, to buy more of it. Savni had drawn their hands away from Auwgek's to the edge of the table, bottom lip sucked back between their tusks and teeth. The light caught the adornments on the tusks that was all the rage these days, hammered and engraved bands of gold about the base that many – Auwgek included – rolled their eyes at but they had enough for trivialities and this was a thing that they'd all done once, the tusk jewellery to match multiple piercings through the ears and through the nose, even the lip sometimes. Sometimes though she couldn't help but wonder what Ghorrog would have thought now that she was ten years gone to the ancestors. She'd ask when she got there herself.  
  
"Lagsha's said a few things, not directly which was odd, I mean it's Lagsha, but I think she was trying to warn me. About what they've said to her. Even the better or clumsier well-meaning lot said…I can't put it how she did. But that and you know the dwarves—their own people too, she said some of them said 'they don't look right' or 'fit right', and then something about the shape of her—What does your shape matter, why do they care?" Savni's mouth twisted as she asked and Auwgek would've given many things to have an answer to that, to be able to easily soothe the furrow in that unpainted brow.  
  
"I don't know, it's their way, always has been. Like I said, after what happened some people cling to things, some abandon what they had entirely, some bind together old and new for good or ill as best they can." Again she took Savni's hand, stroking across the back of the knuckles still bloodied from repairs to the new water purifiers, rough grazers where the skin had been shredded in the work. Hopefully the smile she gave was encouraging. "You're always Savni. That can only mean so much from me if they hurl words at you or curl their lip but talk to Lagsha and others before you go. And Lagsha's husband came from far away and travelled further in his youth, he'd know."  
  
Savni nodded slowly, mouth opening as if to say more but there was a knocking at the door, someone asking after them both for different things that couldn't be put off. Savni would soon be gone and Auwgek's part had been done some time ago. Time to see them freed upon the world to come back after a job well done for the good of the stronghold.  
  
Selfishly Auwgek wanted to clutch them tight as she had at a riverbed nineteen years ago, sure that Lagsha would have to hold her tight again when she watched Savni walk into the world alone taking Auwgek's heart with her.


	2. Chapter 2

Talismans of bone and feather bounced in time with Savni's step, hanging from their pack to guide them back to the stronghold safe and sound with a map that one of their travelling companions had scoffed at soon after joining up. Torwin, a dwarf whose maker's marks shone opal when the light caught them clad in the leather armour of underground beasts who'd never seen the light, dark braids to denote each day what Torwin might be called by the world that she fashioned in such a way to cover where the stone that she'd been shaped for had been damaged, pockmarks that cut through her cheek. Savni's flashing map was as up to date as the stronghold could muster when not many outsiders visited them that weren't other orcs, folk still bent on pulling inwards but for determined caravans and bands of loners so it was the best that might be mustered for someone off alone. A smooth screen with no dead zones and it responded to fingertips, only needing the light of the sun to charge it.  
  
Torwin had been impressed by the crafting, less so about the information, and so she had taken charge of it when Savni had passed it over after three days of harrumphing on their way together. That had been three weeks past now.  
  
Vriexi had joined a half week after again so a week into Savni and Torwin's friendship, two weeks into Savni's time on the road. A goblin, deep blue skin, huge eyes made all the larger for the slit pupils that expanded to swallow the whole of the eye whenever she – Vriexi had only muddled Savni's understanding of goblins if she'd done anything but she happily went with she and so Savni and Torwin called her that – was happy, which was often.   
  
It was more than Savni's mother must have hoped and it had to be better than her fears to have two friends for these days threading into weeks on the trail together when they all waited out storms together, picked up odd jobs and whatever else was needed to earn their keep, enduring human scrutiny as all those who weren't human shaped had to. Torwin got the better treatment for being a dwarf but between her styling of braiding and beards even she didn't escape it, the little town they'd just left in the dust behind them having tried her patience near to breaking from the cursing in their shared room that night, jaw clenched to breaking, to shattering.  
  
Savni hadn't wanted to ask, it would be rude to, no better than the questions folk asked them but still a dwarf was made of stone and all the precious stuff beneath the surface running through them as veins and seams and it got a person to wondering.  
  
"So so so," Vriexi said, birdlike voice high in the morning air as she scurried ahead only to find herself doubling back when she found – much to her great disappointment from the way her face and long ears drooped – that Savni and Torwin were keeping to their pace, not hers. "Did you hear them? Two tables over from us last night? Did you?" She turned about to face them then and ended up walking backwards with the surety of someone who knew they were the fastest thing about, able to bolt and hide then spring out; Vriexi had grown up with strength in numbers in a way even Savni's stronghold hadn't.  
  
"Both of us were doing our best not to," Savni muttered, sharper than they meant to. Vriexi's face fell further, somehow, and it seemed her eyes grew larger.  
  
"A tavern full of humans but us three," Torwin pointed to them in turn, herself last, "Why would you listen to them at all unless to brace and be ready for attack Vriexi?" Her voice was the low burr of stone ground upon stone and it was something that struck Savni even now, that small reminder that a dwarf wasn't born of flesh and blood, that Torwin was _now_ but that had been after. Not first. Not from the start. That much of her would always remember what she'd been first.  
  
Then again, Savni had heard variations on a theme from Vriexi since she'd joined up with them, some of them lurid, and the tales of orcs grew steadily worse the further a person travelled from a stronghold. It wasn't Savni's place to judge a thing in this world.  
  
Vriexi blinked at both of them slowly, long and slow, the way a cat blinked when scolded. "Well then. Plenty of shit was being spat out their mouths that we could've—" her hands came up curled into fists and _one-two_ she punched the air in rapid succession, by Savni's right knee, Torwin's nose, and carried on undeterred. "But but _but_ they started up about elves. Elves!"  
  
"And what did they have to say about elves?" Hostility crept into Torwin's voice, Savni agreeing with her; even below hadn't escaped what the elves had unleashed upon the world and Torwin's ravaged cheek stood as evidence of that. "Humans are foolish, Vriexi, they believe all sorts, even things they knew better about before all that happened and you know it well young Vriexi."  
  
"Oi! I'm ages with both of you!" Vriexi snapped and suddenly she was nose to nose with Torwin, had leapt as a squirrel might one branch to another between two blinks.   
  
Savni stepped between the pair of them, sighing as they hide a smile. "Not a soul's seen an elf since before the time of the elder mother who delivered me and Ghorrog was old enough to deliver my mother into the world too," Savni said because it was the truth though Ghorrog wasn't much more than a fading memory these days, an impression of a stern but indulgent figure, one who'd smuggle a treat into Savni's hand when chores were done with. Savni hadn't been Savni when Ghorrog had passed. "Even if all of it was true, after…after what they did, after what happened, they'd be dead by now. All of them."  
  
Vriexi growled in the back of her throat the way she did sometimes, something about how they couldn't just go shouting, had to make noises over long distances no matter the terrain but no one said anything after that. Savni understood in some way but not what the growl meant, if it meant anything, for they had hand signals on a hunt and Torwin knew the vibrations of the ground and more, all of the rolling and rattling all the way up through her. Savni had gone to bed trying to imagine it. Feeling things in her bones that weren't just an ache after straining something or the time they broke one falling out a tree. It didn't work how they'd imagined it when they did say as much to Torwin but Torwin at least didn't embellish or grab for the outright falsehoods the way Vriexi did with both hands.  
  
Or didn't.  
  
Savni, after all, wasn't any expert on goblins and those they'd passed had been few only sharing the rough outline with Vriexi, chattering greetings but there were more differences between goblins than any human, dwarf or orc it seemed.   
  
"It'd be exciting to see an elf, I think, don't you agree?" Vriexi asked in a great rush as if she might burst if she held it in any longer, bouncing up and down from where she'd fallen in step between the two of them though it seemed to have encouraged Savni to lengthen their stride and they cast a helpless smile down and just behind in Torwin's direction.  
  
Torwin blew out a sigh but the hint of smile twinkled out between her beard and she waved to continue.  
  
"Wouldn't it be sad though?" Savni asked, genuinely curious because they never talked about it much at the stronghold where no one had much time for it and they'd not thought over it outside the odd curse, the rarer discovery, their history lessons. "Seeing them now with what's been left behind and how some ended up?"  
  
"Well _I_ have a few bones and more to pick with them," Torwin replied, folding and unfolding her arms; she didn't quite flinch at Vriexi's small clawed hand lighting gently settling on her cheek, the goblin's teeth chattering together in a way that both orc and dwarf had privately guessed together signified nervousness until Torwin clapped a square hand atop; at Vriexi's look Savni stroked through her fine silky hair that shone, oil atop water but somehow never greasy for all that. "Why d'you want to see elves anyway?"  
  
Vriexi stopped, drawing all three of them to a halt quite neatly with her as she scuffed her boots in the dirt, a glittering black beetle scurrying out of the way. "Heard they were right pretty once is all. You ever see books, the big old ones from before with the gold leaf on the pages where they wrote each and every page by hand and they've got that extra funny page on top of the illustrations to keep them pristine. Big and old, heavy, pretty stones on the cover with a proper clasp holding it shut like it were stuffed full of secrets."  
  
"Never understood why they made books like that in the old world, always seemed wasteful. Do you know why?" Savni was asking Torwin, mostly, since the stones had to have come from the dwarves or passed through their hands and Vriexi turned to look at her too, two sets of brows furrowed in confusion so neither was alone.  
  
Torwin harrumphed, striding ahead of them both so she had time to build up a head of steam on the muttering about goblins and orcs, elves and humans, and she was aggrieved enough that Savni bent low enough to whisper in one of Vriexi's long ears. "Did we offend her?"  
  
Vriexi, bless her, was a goblin who thrived on such things and looked up at Savni as if there were second and third heads sprouting from their left and right shoulders to babble at her in unknown tongues. "Why would that matter. Oi! Oi Torwin hold up! Tell me 'bout gilded books Torwin! I know you know all about 'em!" And she was off, darting the way a rabbit did when it sensed a predator prowling close, all light of foot over the hardy grasses that had encroached onto a path, resistant to the efforts of travellers to mark their way.  
  
Savni eyed the press of the greenery either side, the thick bright blooms of some plant they didn't know that would see it swallowing even more of what might once have been an attempt at a road if there were enough folk on the path, tall enough it threatened to have Vriexi disappearing entirely, Torwin faring little better.  
  
Savni smiled, hiked their pack further up their shoulders and followed the voices to catch up.   
  


* * *

  
  
Unlike Savni's stronghold where the clouds gathered heavily enough of the year round to grow good crops in fertile soil but not so much that they were ever in danger of being flooded, this country they found themselves in was the dry country that experienced infrequent bursts, almost violent when they did come; the plants suggested that everything had adjusted judging by the blooms and they took note of it. Torwin hadn't seen such blooms before even though she'd come up from beneath the earth before and Vriexi had never been far enough from her bogs to claim expertise. The sky darkened, no orange haze, little warning, the green of a fading bruise to orc flesh and suddenly the three of them were sprinting to shelter, far from any outpost on this road.  
  
Fewer travellers for certain, Savni would have to report, perhaps something they could cajole others into being part of. It'd be worth it, to have rest spots. They'd need them for times such as this.  
  
In the end they found a cave as the ground seemed to hiss in its haste to swallow the rain, parched as it was, already a layer of slick mud building up as the three of them scouted it out and found only old bones and scraps, nothing alive but them and what grew on the walls that didn't seem inclined to harm them. No beasts or other people sheltering which were always the chief concerns. They huddled together beneath the overhang, Torwin favouring it with a scowl as she kept herself tucked as far from any drips as she could manage. Savni sat close enough to watch the road though the downpour had intensified to the point that all sound outside that wasn't the rain was muffled and everything was a haze, as if they were behind a waterfall. Vriexi settled herself close to the entrance and stripped herself down to her underclothes without a care then dropped to the ground with her legs crossed, her arms outstretched to span the spray and when Savni peered from where the goblin sat in front of Torwin, as if shielding her, she had her eyes closed, mouth hanging open.  
  
Savni opened their mouth then closed it, fiddling with the bands on their tusks. Vriexi was the picture of contentment, not shivering from the cold or the sting of acid rain nipping at her, no it was the tell-tale shiver of pleasure that went all the way down the spine. Clicks that turned to chirps escaped her soon and her head tipped back. Torwin watched her too then looked at Savni, shrugged, and gave herself a little shake before she reached into her pack for a leather packet that contained combs, brushes, oils and whatever else a dwarf needed to maintain their beard.  
  
They all had their rituals. Maybe Savni's since it involved caring for tusks seemed more extreme when picks entered the picture.  
  
"My forebears covered their eyes so they wouldn't witness shameful things," Torwin said, her voice muffled behind her hands as she worked swiftly to loosen the braids closest to it, far faster than Savni managed themselves, envious since Torwin didn't even seem to need to look at what she was doing. Hazard of being in circles where you took turns.  
  
"Should I not be looking then?" Savni asked, delving into their pack to set up a light to check the map; as far as the three of them guessed they were on track but it never hurt anyone to confirm as best they could when the opportunity presented itself and now was as good a time as any. Even when the rain stopped they'd have to wait until the water wasn't going to splash up and burn their skin.  
  
"No, it's not forbidden if that's what you've heard." Torwin had a comb in hand as she said it, carefully working the long pointed end through the loosened strands to rid herself of snarls or tangles.  
  
"Ah I'm not a human and we did have trade sometimes with dwarves though less in my stronghold but our closest neighbours did. Sometimes they came up to stay for some reason or another but we've all got our ways." Savni didn't know if Torwin wanted the explanation but it couldn't hurt after what had happened already on the road at times with hurt feelings to be carefully smoothed over. And it wasn't as if Savni was a stranger to strange stories about orcs that Torwin had tiptoed about, the way they learnt to sort truth from lies with all people that weren't their own after a certain point in time.  
  
Torwin's cratered cheek pulled up the way it did when she smiled, just a flash of it and the opalescent sheen to tell of the hands who'd carved her out of the rock deep in the mountain's heart as her square hands undid the rest of her braids, smoothing them out until all her hair shone about her face, beads and various other decorations set in a neat pile by her feet. "It gets cramped down below depending where you are, more and more nowadays."  
  
"But you've the whole of the underside, don't you? Able to divert the lava flows and everything, how can it be cramped?" Despite wanting to laugh, Savni just about managed to stifle it or at least the very worst though the edge of it crept out to shadow the words as one hand tracked over the map and the compass that spun wildly. Probably the rain. Or maybe the rock. Savni couldn't tell what the rock of the cave was made from or what might lie deeper beneath them. The weight of Torwin's gaze pulled them back from it, same as on a hunt when the deer heard the twig snap or the wind changed before the wolf. "What? You've all of it don't you?"  
  
"Does anyone have all the world now?" Torwin sighed heavily, hair blowing away from her face. "We do and we don't Savni," she continued, a sadness creeping into her as she stopped with her braiding to scoop up the silver baubles she'd set down and roll them in her hands, the rattling swallowed up by the rain. "We packed all we might ever need to survive to the rafters long before the elves got up to their nonsense because we knew it was coming, we heard what they were up to, don't you know—"  
  
Vriexi hissed, scrambling to turn about so her back was to the rain. Savni and Torwin both swore, Savni jumping and banging a hand against the edge of the map that sent shock jangling all the way up to their elbow, teeth set on edge; Vriexi sitting so still, so quiet, so peaceful was easy enough to mistake as Vriexi asleep or meditating. But no, the goblin was awake, viciously so, claws raking her hair away from her face as her eyes glowed faintly in the dark, the same sheen as the wildcats of the mountains that stalked through the deep winter snowfall on large silent feet, two luminous moons. "How did you know?"  
  
It wasn't an accusation. Savni had been expecting that but not how soft the question came when it did after the burst of activity.  
  
"Me personally? I didn't. That was before my time Vriexi." Torwin raised a brow more for Savni's benefit, a look that said _I don't know what's happening, feel free to step in friend_ as she continued, the water faintly steaming off Vriexi causing her hair to frizz. "What I have are our history lessons and I assume you have yours and Savni has their own and they go like this: the elves asked for our help because back then the dwarves were the only people capable of the feats they wanted accomplished. We said no. None of it was good or right in what they wanted done, machinery and devices that our hands and people shouldn't be sullied with so the dwarves said no and the elves went on their way. There's not…" Torwin broke off, pushing her clouds of hair away from her face with a huff, the blue glow of the light turning the pockmarks of her cheeks to deep craters and valleys, bottom lip pursed. "There's not a lot that remains of the specifics or if there are then I'm not someone with access to it, I'm not that sort of scholar you know. And the elves weren't really ones for specifics anyway."  
  
Savni and Vriexi nodded their agreement. There weren't many things all people agreed on but the vagueness of the lost elves of days gone by were one of the few no matter how high an opinion some (humans, mostly) held.   
  
Torwin was still talking, Vriexi leaning in close with care taken not to drip on her and Savni caught themselves doing the same despite having little interest in the elves. Something about how Torwin told it, things they'd never heard before from anyone to be taken back to the stronghold on their return. "Dates match up though between our refusal and how long it would have taken them to learn, to craft, to put in place all that was needed for—" Torwin broke off, a hesitation unlike her but who could be blamed for not wanting to say it even if it had happened lifetimes before any of the assembled company in this cave? Savni certainly couldn't despite the hand they set upon Torwin's thigh that she patted absently. "Events all take the correct shape; fault ruin through the stone that match the foulness that seeped through from the surface all stemming from their deeds."  
  
She gestured to the ruin of her cheek that extended elsewhere on her body, snatched glimpses when changing and bathing on the road and sharing rooms. How many more looked as Torwin did? How many had it better? How many had it worse? There weren't always two-headed deer. Beasts with flesh that sloughed from them and great tumours or ganglions, all the other things that marked after. Even the blooms on this path, the rain that fell. All of it, all of it from the elves.  
  
And Torwin had finished in the same tone Savni's mother and Lagsha had carried with them for as long as Savni could remember, the one of a person trying to hold themselves level and they squeezed Torwin's thigh tighter so the dwarf wouldn't just look but _see_ , Vriexi furiously drying a hand on Savni's shirt after a few gestures to lay it on the marked cheek until the dwarf flushed red and shook both of them off, slapping at them so she could oil her hair and beard. But the slaps were light, gently meant.   
  
"We made those gilded books once, Vriexi," Torwin said as she ran the comb through her hair until it glistened. "When the times were well and good, coin enough to spend on luxuries and folk fat enough to roll down the hall like marbles. It must have belonged to someone who knew wealth though I can't believe it lasted so long in the world. We only have relics and guard them. Not even everyone can touch them now, the oils on your hands damage the pages."  
  
"Humans have them too, don't they? Their holy scripture books in places. I remember," Savni cleared their throat and broke off to reach for a canteen of juice picked up on the last stop, sickly-sweet on the tongue after lingering in the pack all day, "Lagsha my favourite aunt telling me about how they would die to defend these books from invaders and raiders. All that blood for pages."  
  
"It was a right shiny book," Vriexi said from where she'd settled next to Savni, wriggling down on her belly regardless of the cold of the cave floor, a perfect puddle about her that never threatened to stray far. "All of us were keen on the pictures in it but it wasn't in a language we knew."  
  
"D'you keep it?" Savni offered out the flask then tucked it away when no one else wanted it, the map along with it.  
  
"Of course. I mean sure, we'd have gotten something for it even as goblins who'd be accused of thieving since that's our lot but thing is, right," Vriexi propped herself up so her elbows were bent, chin resting on the back of her hands, "You don't ever find much fun shiny stuff in bogs or swamps. Good stuff that'll be useful. Everyone needs scrap to get rid of so nothing'll get sick or hurt – too much iron rusting and suddenly the water turns and we're all sick and dying – but that was…it was something. And it was the first time to ever see elves. They made us. I know they did a terrible thing and some'll tack on 'and the goblins' but you can love your parents and know they do bad things at the same time. Maybe me and mine are the only ones about to have seen anything made in them days of how they looked. They were something to look at, weren't they?"  
  
"They were," Savni agreed, daring to run fingers through Vriexi's damp hair and it stung only a little so they continued, beginning to fashion braids when the goblin didn't complain though her hair was fine and soft even when wet, slipping through their fingers. "That they were from what I saw."  
  
Torwin was watching them both, braiding her beard back into place, forming the shape of she with the ease of long practice. "How can either of you stand that?"  
  
"It's not so bad," Savni replied with a shrug. "I've been out in the rains when I have to be and orcs are a hardy bunch, we can all handle a bit of it and in the mountains even the snows can be full of it."  
  
"No, not—Vriexi you sat by it and you're lying in it."  
  
"Well what d'you want me to do Torwin? Crack and dry out?" Vriexi turned her head slowly and the braids Savni had been working slipped free of Savni's hand to spill over her skinny little shoulder, blinking slowly as if the answer should be blatantly obvious. "You understand, of course."  
  
"No. No I don't else I wouldn't be asking you."  
  
Savni moved to interrupt but Vriexi had a hand on their shoulder for leverage to stand, just short of dripping all over them. The goblin took a breath, dripping only a little on Savni's knee. "Flesh, blood, ichor – that's how you come out right? I mean, it's a bit more human the way I heard it and the whole thing sounds stupidly painful and troublesome for the one who has to push out a smaller version of another person and just…one at a time? Maybe two and it's not like it's a big space. I know how it all works but still. Heads, shoulders?" Vriexi cast a significant glance at Savni who tried not to laugh whilst sending a silent prayer and apology to their mother back at the stronghold; Auwgek would know, they were sure, and would laugh about it to Lagsha and her sisters. Vriexi stomped off again to sit again and Savni recalled life in the stronghold, gardens, greenhouses, repairs, and Vriexi wasn't soaking herself, she was _misting_ herself this way. "You really do just drink it and that's all."  
  
It was a lot to take in and sort through, Savni sifting through everything they'd seen and heard until they were more certain of their footing, wiping ineffectually at the damp spots on their knee from Vriexi. "You mean so we don't dry out? Torwin and I," they pointed to the dwarf who might've been doing something with her eyebrows but it was difficult to tell. "We…yeah. We just drink. I mean I can't speak for Torwin or humans but they aren't here anyway but my skin does dry out when the sun's out; I'm from higher in the mountains, snowmelt rivers, colder much of the year and it's a different sort of dry but it wouldn't hurt me too much. Uncomfortable when you get chapped and cracked when you don't put on any sort of balm for too long but nothing terrible."  
  
Vriexi sniffed, lifting her head, chin high.  
  
"Vriexi," Savni tried and their palm prickled on touching the goblin's cool back. "Should I change the route? We've time to go looking over it now."  
  
Vriexi didn't hiss or growl in response. It was a rattling from low in the throat that escaped, Torwin dropping her comb in her lap. "Warn a dwarf would you!"  
  
"We can go without!" Vriexi had turned back to face them again and Savni lifted their hands in a gesture of pace.  
  
"I'm only saying that you don't—" They tried, hands outstretched but Vriexi was having none of it; Torwin was enjoying it as she resumed working on her hair.  
  
"We can go without! How else have I been on this road with the two of you with nothing happening to me, how do you think goblins spread so far and wide—" Vriexi's interruption was furious, lending speed to her already rapid speech and Savni struggled to keep up with it.  
  
"You don't _have_ to!"  
  
Vriexi pulled a face and flicked water at Savni, enough to sting where it caught them in the open collar of their coat, sharp teeth bared in a smile that might have been friendly or the precursor to something else; wild things bared their teeth all the time and not a one of them smiled and it had been said by Vriexi as well that wild things had gone into the shaping of the goblins too.  
  
"You know the only reason I left my stronghold was to get new parts to make sure our water supply doesn't get poisoned when the old ones break down in a few years," Savni muttered when no one else said anything; it was comical, Vriexi almost a frog out by the rain that they filtered from their supply when it came down in torrents until eventually things wore out.   
  
"Your water does that?" Vriexi looked at Savni then to Torwin, both of them nodding, and rubbed the rain over her slick skin that hadn't just darkened but seemed – to Savni's eyes at least – more vibrant now, something else beneath the blue glowing beneath it as she peered at the two of them, as if she was trying to guess if she was being made fun of. "You lot are weird. Water poisoning you but you only need to drink it. Well well well."  
  
"Wells are just one part of the issue," Torwin said after just the right pause to have Savni laughing as they flopped backwards into the dirt, listening to her finish up her braiding and packing away the kit, the same motions they'd all use back in the hold. The way Savni's mother or aunts would whenever Savni stopped to visit.  
  
How they'd fussed, she remembered, when she'd shaved one side of it. _Children these days_ , they'd tutted with fingers running over the stubble. But all of them would be happy for this. The same jokes and tired laughter even after bickering that Savni remembered from the stories they'd begged for often long before being able to even tag along to watch hunts or to forage.   
  
It wasn't good to travel alone. Burdens were always easier to share when possible.  
  


* * *

  
  
Two days in and the rains had lessened to a steady drizzle that Savni and Vriexi braved to hunt; the beasts out were hardened to the downpours or so it seemed and Savni had taken their bow to bring down what they could silently, Vriexi slipping through the long grasses to pack their satchel full of smaller darting things – lizards or amphibians, it got blurry the further you stepped from home. Torwin built the fire high in the cave, reinforced it, and so they settled to smoke it as best they all could together to have supplies to trade in the next stop or to nibble on since Savni had pointed out time and time again to them that you could never predict where and when your next meal would come from. Plus, there wasn't all that much for Torwin to do though she'd been busy at her own project. They all had things to keep their hands and minds busy.  
  
Finally the rains broke entirely and both Savni then Vriexi braved the paths again further than they had, Savni climbing up the trees to test what might happen if the winds picked up to release a built up torrent but it was nothing so terrible. Everything was as thirsty as Vriexi had been at the mouth of the cave when first they'd settled. Torwin had trusted their assessments and now they were all packed and ready. More or less.  
  
"You see," Torwin held out her painstaking map of vellum – real vellum, Savni marvelled at it, they'd never seen it used for such a purpose if it hadn't been salvaged – that she'd been working on during their forced halt, compared against Savni's map and traded stories with both of them with a satisfied smile before she rolled it back up and into her pack. "We've so few maps such as these that aren't entirely out of date or headed that way or complete and utter shit, not worth the materials that went into the making of them, that I couldn't take it. I always loved them, all that went into it, but some of what you hear and how dangerous it could be for all of us if the maps are wrong? If we can't keep them up to date and reproduce good versions? How could I stay down there and not come up here to do what I'm damned good at. I'll have this uploaded and make my money to head out on other expeditions to make more."  
  
Savni, several paces ahead from where they'd scouted just to be sure when there were creatures that weren't wolves but close enough though more heavily muscled with huge square heads and extra eyes but Vriexi and Torwin hadn't seen them before either, and nothing they had between them knew the name so wolves they remained, turned back. A frog hopped over the foot hanging in mid-air, a slick glossy violet with amber eyes. It paused, blinked hugely up at her, then croaked. The thin skin about the throat billowed outward, organs squelching below before it hopped off, complaint at a great tall intruder along the trail lodged.  
  
Savni set their foot down, turning more fully back towards Torwin, shuddering. Frogs weren't a thing they'd taken a liking to off the mountain. Yvethe had told a story when Savni had been young about being on a raid and how the frogs had sung all night, glowing all about her and everyone else, spots and lines on their backs that smiled out in the dark. Their enemies had set them in the water to poison it, good strong orcs screaming, clawing at throats closing tight about them.  
  
"You'd have a buyer in my stronghold, probably a lot of strongholds," they replied after another moment to swallow past the discomfort of amphibian intrusions, scratching at where they'd nicked the scalp shaving in the low light. Mother didn't see the point in it much more than the jewellery about the tusks ( _back in my day you shaved both sides of your head Savni_ and Savni had patted her hand, enduring the mutterings about how impractical it all was with the minimum of eye rolling). "We need more maps but you know, can't go everywhere easily since we're orcs. And people are what they are."  
  
"They really matter that much? These maps." Vriexi was finishing chewing her breakfast, a tough cut she was tearing at even with her sharp little teeth. "You go places, right? You know turf by the look. Smell. Sound."  
  
Torwin stared blankly. Or maybe aghast. Savni wasn't always the best with dwarven faces yet. "How would you know by the smell?" The dwarf tugged her beard braids closer to where she wanted them, the usual series of morning adjustments as they set off.  
  
"I'm sorry, how can you know from the sound?" Savni didn't see sense in holding off on their question now Torwin had asked hers since surely the answers couldn't be so different to one another.  
  
"Savni, Savni, Savni," Torwin smiled and clapped a heavy hand on their arm, sharing a look with Vriexi of gentle sympathy. "Sometimes I forget that you don't know the world through the bones as we do. You can't have it vibrating up through you."  
  
"I suppose you don't want to go smelling everything we need to down underground with some of the gasses and so on," Savni reasoned though again, maybe it was a flesh thing and a stone thing, or the two of them twined about each other that you just didn't ask a person.  
  
"And neither of you," Vriexi grinned after choking down the meat, "Have a repertoire near as full as _my_ folk do. Or the elves did. The elves could sing and know a thousand things; it's how it came to all of us!"  
  
"No one knows if the elves ever had songs." Torwin's words were abrupt and Savni bit down on their groan; already sniping at one another after a promising start and so early in the day, barely out of a cave where they'd managed to stay civil for the most part. "Why do you care about the damned elves? You were done over by them just as much as any of them? No goblin I've ever met has ever given a mole rat's shit about what the elves got up to."  
  
"Torwin!" Savni hadn't intended to shout but they did, a bird bursting out from a nearby tree with a series of squawks at them.  
  
Vriexi held up a hand, eyes closed, breathing deeply and Savni stepped back, allowing the fight to leave them but still alert, watching and waiting.  
  
"I care, Torwin, because I, Vriexi beloved of the mother bog what birthed out Vriexi and all of Vriexi's kin and all generations before, am what I am because of elves. All of us are. We looked different once, goblins did, we still remember that, and we wouldn't be what we are like me swimming through bogs and breathing it in through my skin if it weren't for them. We'd have died if we hadn't been made by them then then made again after. It's a funny sort of twisted up debt but I suppose that's all of us now." She looked between the two of them then to her hands that had been out in the rain longer than Savni's, a small lithe body that wasn't built with the hardiness of an orcs that lasted for so long against acid rain that bounced up to pummel you as soon as it hit the ground but welcomed it. "I would give many things to see an elf. To see what made us. And I saw the book. I saw them, saw what we were and what we are now, and I worry at it like a loose tooth: how different are the elves now? And how all they did ended up good for us because it's better, it's easier, we aren't hurting like before but it did bad things for all of you."  
  
Vriexi hesitated after all that, narrow chest heaving, for only as long as it took to ask permission with a look; with a nod of her head Torwin granted it and again that small dark hand landed on her cratered cheek, Savni looking on with a lump caught in their throat.  
  
"I know how dwarves get made," Savni said softly. "And I know the stories of how orcs were made of the earth once too but we learnt the secret of how we came to be flesh and blood so now we can't go back. We can't remember how to crunch rock or breathe in water or withstand all the raw parts of the world. Even we can't withstand this. A long time ago it was whispered as our punishment. Now…now I don't know."  
  
"Do you believe that?" Vriexi asked, her attention on Savni alone.  
  
"I don't think I ever really did, I think everyone told themselves that to make sense of the suffering they never asked for."  
  
"It was the same below. When children shattered in the hands before they had any shape. When we came out as I did, cracked and cratered, maker's marks corrupted. Lucky that the blood wasn't poison in our veins," Torwin added in a low rumbling tone.  
  
"I…I came to settle an itch beneath my skin and for a good adventure like every goblin should. Savni," Vriexi nodded, "Came to stop their water turning to poison for the rest of their people. And Torwin is making new maps for all the people who'll come after."  
  
Her voice climbed steadily upwards. Savni wondered if she realised. If she knew her limbs were twitching the way any orc would take to mean as _draw weapons_ but goblins were an animated bunch and these gestures meant little, no instigation required, instincts Savni had honed amidst the stronghold pushed down and away. Torwin bowed her head and the sun crept through the branches to catch the opal that told her lineage; Savni thought they heard a humming, something in their teeth. It might well have been the huge bees droning now it wasn't too wet to fly.  
  
"I think," Savni said at length, "we should make a detour for elves. We've stopped already. Torwin can fill out more of the map on the way. I can certainly pick up parts all over the place and I might bump into more orcs, you never know. The parts aren't going to break down tomorrow. I've time."  
  
Vriexi's eyes shone liquid black as she hugged Torwin tight, bouncing on the spot as the dwarf agreed, setting off and matching the goblin's pace for once, Savni the one hanging back as they smiled.  
  
Only the wild things heard the words aimed at the two backs heading down the muddied path: "And I still want to see more of this world with friends in tow."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the following poem:
> 
> This landscape invented me  
> Thirsty, forest-haired  
> Bilberries honey-black  
> Four-tongued brothers  
> Songs dissolved  
> In the divided time  
> The years flow  
> over the banks of the past.  
> \-- Rose Ausländer, Bukowina II


End file.
